Nico d’Estais has been waiting all his life to sail solo in an IMOCA race and this weekend, when the Vendée Arctique leaves Les Sables D’Olonne for the Arctic Circle, he will be on Cloud 9.

The 34-year-old Café Joyeux skipper will be racing the only daggerboard boat in the nine-strong fleet, on board the former Monnoyeur - Duo For A Job (originally MACIF from 2010), and he knows he has nothing to lose against a field which includes the latest foilers.

The 34-year-old former Mini and Class 40 sailor, who gave up a career in management consulting in 2021 to pursue his dream of racing in the Vendée Globe, says the pressure is off him and he wants to try and enjoy this demanding race as much as possible.

“I don’t have any pressure in terms of results,”he explained in the fluent English he learnt when living in London as a child. “I am the only daggerboard boat, no one is expecting me to win or anything, so I can only do well in a way. I feel very excited, more than any other race I’ve taken part in.

“The priority is really to finish and complete the course, with my boat and with Nico in one piece,”he added. “That would already be a success, and if I can leave one or two boats behind me, I will try for sure. I did that in the first race of the season - the 1000 Race – when I managed to put one foiling boat behind me, and if I can do the same again, I will try to.”

© Martin Keruzore_OERT

D’Estais’ ultimate goal is the 2028 Vendée Globe for which the Vendée Arctique is a qualifier and that is his other priority - making sure he books his place in Les Sables D’Olonne in just over two years’ time. But he says the Vendée Arctique has come a little early in the timeframe of his project.

“I would never go to the Vendée Globe tomorrow,”he explained, “it’s too soon. To reach the level I need to sail the Vendée Globe, you go up a staircase and each race is a step. The Vendée Arctique is a big step in that path. And it’s a big step that comes very early in the project, because I have only learnt really how to sail the IMOCA alone these past few weeks. And I am already preparing to leave to go to the Arctic Circle, so it comes really quickly in the project, for sure.”

D’Estais, who finished fourth in the Transat CIC in Class 40s in 2024 and was runner-up in the 2019 Mini Transat, says the course and likely weather conditions for the Vendée Arctique are intimidating and he knows that a largely lightair race - that would suit his boat - is very unlikely.

“It’s not a race when you know exactly what you are going into, like a usual transatlantic race when you have a few days upwind and then you find your way below the high pressure, and then it’s downwind. This race is a return course, so you are crossing the same system in two different directions, and then you don’t really know what to expect along the way because the scenarios can be very different,”he said.

Since getting hold of the boat for last year’s two-handed season - d’Estais completed the Transat Café L’OR alongside the Swiss sailor Simon Koster in 13th place - he has been learning the ropes single-handed on what is a challenging racing machine.“IMOCAs are very complex, more complex and more difficult to sail than any other boats I’ve sailed on,” he said. “I’ve done mostly Minis and Class 40s up until now. So it is about sailing in a way that respects protocols for every manoeuvre, like reefing the main, or tacking or gybing. 

“I try to do these manoeuvres in exactly the same way and in the right order most of the time,”he continued. “If you do things differently, that’s when you start making mistakes. And if you make mistakes on these boats, it’s right away a big problem. You can break things and do stuff that’s expensive. So, more than any other boat, I’ve learnt to follow procedures.”

Now the focus is all about Sunday and the thrill of taking his place alongside eight other skippers as they set sail from Les Sables D’Olonne with the Vendée Arctique’s Icelandic waters ahead of them. It will be quite a moment for this outgoing and talented newcomer to the greatest solo racing class on the planet. 

“My dream was always to sail in IMOCA boats,”he said. “I lived in London when I was a kid, and I saw Ellen MacArthur finishing in the 2000-2001 Vendée Globe, and since then I’ve always dreamt of doing the Vendée and being a sailor. 

“So when I left my job to do Class 40s, my objective was to eventually move to IMOCA, so Sunday will be a big day for me - sailing down the channel at Les Sables D’Olonne…”

Ed Gorman